Pictures of the day: 7 January 2014

An artist's illustration shows Supernova 1987A, based on real data with the cold, inner regions of the exploded star's remnants (in red) where tremendous amounts of dust were detected and imaged by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). This inner region is contrasted with the outer shell (lacy white and blue circles), where the blast wave from the supernova is colliding with the envelope of gas ejected from the star prior to its powerful detonation. Inset is an image from the Hubble Space Telescope of the supernova.Picture: AFP PHOTO/ESO/ALMA/NAOJ/NRAO/Alexandra Angelich